Star Wars_ The Black Fleet Crisis 03_ Tyrant's Test - Michael P. Kube-McDowell [98]
“Akanah—”
When she made no response, gave no sign she even heard, he became concerned and moved toward her. But she rose to her feet before he reached her and moved away from him at an angle, climbing over a jumble of stones that had once been a wall and then breaking into a run.
Puzzled, Luke stopped and called after her. “Akanah—what is it? Where are you going?” Reaching out with his sense skill, Luke swept his surroundings for threats, but found none. “Akanah!”
When she did not even look back, he started after her. But in the next moment, she vanished—as thoroughly and effortlessly as she had aboard the ship. There was not even a tremble in the Force to mark her disappearance or betray her presence afterward.
Luke’s first thought was of betrayal. She got me here like she was supposed to, and now she’s getting herself out of the way. Crouching behind a jumble of broken cutstone, Luke swept the area again, concentrating on the ridgeline of the enclosing hills.
The ship’s vulnerable—if I were them, I’d take it out first.
But there was no blaster fire from the hills, no sudden appearance by troops concealed in the rubble, no patrol flyer swooping up through the entrance to the valley. He found his failure to detect any other life presence—Imperial, Yevethan, H’kig, Fallanassi—puzzling.
“Akanah!” he called loudly.
There was no answer. Luke stood up slowly, letting his lightsaber fall from his hand to dangle at his hip. Still scanning warily, he walked to where Akanah had knelt, but there were no clues there.
Maybe she never was real, he thought. Maybe someone’s been playing with my mind.
Whether he was alone or not, Luke did not intend to become stranded on J’t’p’tan, with only a Yevethan colony eight thousand klicks away to look to for help. There was no place to hide or shelter Mud Sloth, but he knew that the skiff’s navigation shields would provide some protection against hand blasters and other small weapons. Luke revisited the cockpit just long enough to activate them, then sealed the hatch and set off in the direction Akanah had been heading when she vanished.
When he reached the spot where he had last seen her—or as closely as he could fix it—he sat down on the edge of a giant building stone that was scorched black and cracked in half.
“No Yevetha. No Fallanassi. No Akanah,” he said aloud. “No Imperial troopers. No Nashira. So why am I here? There’s something missing from this picture. What’s this all been about? There’s something here still not seen.”
Prodded by his own words, Luke turned his head slowly to one side, then the other. “Maybe a lot of somethings not seen,” he said, more loudly. “Finding a cup of water in an ocean, was it? I can do that. All it takes is time, and knowing that it can be done.”
When there was still no response, Luke stood. “If I have to pick between your being an illusion and your being real, Akanah, I think I have reason enough to know that you’re real.” He turned slowly in a circle, waiting. “So I know that you’re still here—and I’d bet that you can hear me.”
When waiting was not rewarded, Luke climbed atop the broken stone, making an easy target of himself. “At first I thought you were hiding from whoever did this,” he called. “But they’re long gone and far away, aren’t they? And you didn’t run away in fear, did you—no, you wouldn’t need to. You told me over and over that you can protect yourself.”
Jumping down, he began walking slowly in the direction Akanah had been going when she vanished. “Which leaves only one conclusion, Akanah—that you were running toward something. That you found what you were looking for.” He felt his throat tighten as envy washed over him, and his next words came out with a hoarse rasp. “That the Circle is here.”
Ten meters away to Luke’s right, three women suddenly appeared, as though they had stepped through an invisible curtain. One wore a sashed white gown with diagonal sky blue bands. Her silver hair tumbled down